Pioneering research on brain functions by the eminent neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield provides scientific evidence for the existence of a spirit.

A few decades ago Dr. Penfield was attempting to identify the source of epileptic seizures by stimulating regions of patients’ brains. His did this by exposing the brain and delivering mild electric currents (shocks) to the conscious patient's surface neocortex. By this process he hoped to identify areas of the brain that triggered epileptic seizures. If the seizure location in a patient could be identified he would consider removing the tissue to prevent future seizures. By repeatedly stimulating brain regions in conscious patients and noting the effects, Penfield was able to construct a remarkably detailed map of localized functions in the brain, a map showing which areas of the brain controlled sensations and movements in the body.In all his work on searching for epileptic trigger sites, Penfield noticed something very interesting. He noted that he could not locate the mind, the thing that regulates conscious decision making, reasoning, sentience, and agency.

When Penfield carried out his investigations, patients would report all sorts of sensations, memories, and movements, but these were things that happened to the patients. You see, his electrode could not stimulate patients to make a choice, to believe something, or to reason, the very things associated with the human mind.

Does this mean that the human mind was not evident in his research? On the contrary, the human mind was present. It was present in the patients’ reports of what Penfield’s electrode caused them to do and feel. For example, when the electrode caused a patient’s hand to move, the patient often said, “I didn’t do that, you did” (i.e., the patient’s mind reflected on how Penfield made his or her hand move). The patient did not say, “I wanted to move my hand (something which would indicate that Penfield stimulated the mind). Penfield concluded that “The patient’s mind, which is considering the situation in such an aloof and critical manner, can only be something quite apart from the neuronal reflex action [brain].”

When Penfield began his studies of the human brain, he had hoped to discover how the brain causes the mind, something that we are continually reminded of by atheists (i.e., there is no agentic mind/spirit, just brain neuronal activity). However, because no one has been able to find the physical areas of the brain that control the mind, we are left to wonder, where is the mind? Penfield wrote that “it will always be quite impossible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal activity in the brain.” Unable to find the mind in the brain, yet ever aware of the presence of the mind during his research, Penfield determined that something else must be causing the mind. And what was that something else? He declared, “What a thrill it [was] to discover that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit!”

Isn't that kind of like looking for my car inside of its glove box, under it's seats, etc?

The very idea that you could look inside of a brain and find some part that is "the mind" where it all comes together is altogether incoherent.

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Dave C.

6/10/2011 10:26:45 am

Jeff,

The idea that such a thing is altogether oncoherent requires a coherent argument about why that is so.

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Jeff G

6/10/2011 11:01:41 am

Look up "Cartesian Theater". You'll find plenty.

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cadams

6/12/2011 04:47:54 am

There's many evidences pointing to consciousness outside the physical body: i.e. veridical perception, consciousness without EEG waves, and those born blind seeing. One introduction to the subject for a popular audience is
The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena

A few decades ago? So Dr. Penfield never witnessed modern functional neuroimaging? Those scans that show the brain lighting up with activity whenever people think, reason, and make decisions? If he did, I'm sure he would recant.

If the brain were only for simple mechanical movements, why all this activity while only thinking? What is the brain doing? If Dr. Penfield were right, we might expect the brain to go dark while the spirit did its work. But it doesn't, it's very active while thinking. Perhaps it's... thinking?

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Dave C.

7/14/2011 05:39:27 am

Tim,

Sure. Modern neuroimaging, in particular Positron Emission Tomography which is what you alluded to, has done a lot to help us identify where higher order processes take place in the brain, usually in the frontal lobes. I would also add that damage to the frontal lobes impairs higher order processes such as thinking and reasoning. So neuroimaging and data on brain injuries strongly indicate where higher order processes are regulated. But showing where the physical brain is active during higher order processes does not answer the question of whether activation of these areas can cause one to reason or make a choice. Areas of the parietal lobes light up when we experience a tactile sensory stimulus, but this does not imply that the parietal lobe controls sensory stimuli. Anyway, you've brought up an interesting issue.
Thanks for dropping by.

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Steve

10/27/2011 01:09:34 am

So, your reasoning is that because someone decades ago couldn't force a choice using electric shocks, the only other explanation is a spirit?

This isn't evidence for anything other than causing electric shocks in arbitrary positions didn't cause a person to make a decision. In a sample size of one. Without today's technology and understanding of the brain.

That doesn't say we can't eventually shock someone on to a decision, nor does it say no methods exist to cause someone to make a decision.

You're purposely misguiding people on what the study actually showed.

I could say it must mean humans are actually controlled by an alien civilisation as part of a social sport and are only able to receive decisions to choices through advanced technology, not through inner thought. This study provides as much evidence for my hypothesis as yours, exactly none.

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David Salter

6/12/2013 01:19:30 am

This is what happens when you let a person who already has a strong belief in the supernatural, write about science. Maybe he should have also studied the psychological phenomenon known as "confirmation bias".

There has been much development in the area of neuroscience recently, due to the much improved resolution of fMRI machines. Dr V S Ramachandran is, I believe, one of the leaders in this area.

My understanding of the current research concerning consciousness is that the whole brain is involved. But first we have to define what exactly consciousness is.

The brain is, in short, a modelling engine, which collates stimuli from its surroundings, and creates a model of the environment, along with memories of events and outcomes, for the purpose of predicting the possible outcomes for various decisions - which control the body to do various things. We have a group of neurons which represent, for example, the colour white, another group for the colour red, another to represent an animal called a cat, and another to represent a rug. Other groups of neurons represent the concept of time. So to "model" a white cat, sat on a red rug, at a particular time, all these neuron groups connect together via the hypocampus (which is a kind of look up directory for short term memories). When we want to remember this scene, the hypocampus simply accesses the one connection that links all these connections together.

Now imagine that this is happenning constantly, with every stimuli that enters the brain - which is constantly updating its model of the world. It follows then, that the concept of consciousness is the interconnectedness of all these pathways, to arrive at a concept of "self" within its environment. meaning that the whole brain is involved in creating the experience of consciousness.

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Niranjan Ghosh

7/26/2015 04:19:48 am

Following Dr.Penfield's experiment, it seems that something is engaged in affecting neuronal activities of brain in resemblance with horse ridind. It is perhaps matter wave of our living body.